Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/20

6 regards a favoured candidate this marked the extent of Mrs. Beever's somewhat dry expectations. They were addressed in a subordinate degree to the girl's "playing," which was depended on to become brilliant, and to her hair, which was viewed in the light of a hope that it would with the lapse of years grow darker. Wilverley, in truth, would never know if she played ill; but it had an old-fashioned prejudice against loud shades in the natural covering of the head. One of the things his cousin had been invited for was that Paul should get used to her eccentric colour—a colour of which, on a certain bright Sunday of July, Mrs. Beever noted afresh, with some alarm, the exaggerated pitch. Her young friend had arrived two days before and now—during the elastic interval from church to luncheon—had been despatched to Bounds with a message and some preliminary warnings. Jean knew that she should find there a house in some confusion, a new-born little girl, the first, a young mother not yet "up," and an odd visitor, somewhat older than herself, in the person of Miss Armiger, a schoolfriend of Mrs. Bream, who had made her appearance a month before that of the child and had stayed on,